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ne might not like the personality or the architecture of Le Corbusier—indeed, in the transatlantic correspondence between critics Lewis Mumford and Frederic Osborn, Mumford called him "a menace/'1 Osborn regarded him as "godlike,"2 as "fundamentally stupid," as "a pernicious influence," with the "controversial manners of a ranting political columnist," and said that as a "pseudo-sociologist-economist he is a babbling baby."3 Yet no one can look at twentieth-century architecture without considering Le Corbusier very seriously—even in his demythologized form.For architects who have an individual approach to design in modern architecture, and for scholars whose experiences are sufficiently broad to appreciate the difficulties involved, it is time to look objectively at the work of one of the important architectural masters.In this book, under the symbol of the Open Hand (Fig. 1), the enigmatic figure of Le Corbusier is examined. In organizing this collective endeavor, I have been conscious of the fact that genius evades classification. Neither have I forgotten Maxwell Fry's timely warning to those "who hope by pecking over the remains of the great—the diaries, letters, reported conversations, photographs, and so on—that they will be permitted to pierce to the heart of the mystery that makes men great."

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